By WILL BRUMLEVE
will@fordcountychronicle.com
PAXTON — A meeting of the Paxton City Council’s economic development committee will be at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 24, at City Hall, 145 S. Market St., to discuss developing a plan for the revitalization of vacant and dilapidated buildings in the city’s tax-increment financing (TIF) district.
The TIF district comprises the Ottawa Road corridor and downtown area. Earlier this month, representatives of the Paxton Area Chamber of Commerce asked the city council to take swift legal action against downtown property owners who continue to neglect their storefronts and use them for noncommercial purposes, such as storage.
Alderman Kendall Cox, chairman of the economic development committee, requested a meeting of his committee be held to further discuss options to address the complaints and asked that Mayor Bill Ingold invite Anthony Schuering, the city’s TIF attorney, to attend.
Among the problem properties is a storefront in the 100 block of North Market Street that has remained vacant and been used for storage for years, drawing repeated complaints. While it has sat vacant, numerous buildings surrounding it have been improved inside and out, and Paxton’s downtown streetscape recently received a million-dollar makeover.
“My business is next door to one of the businesses that has been a topic of conversation for quite some time,” chamber representative and downtown business owner Dawn Stack told the council. “I had personal conversations (about the property) with Mayor Bill Ingold about three years ago, and I was assured that after a million dollars was put into our downtown, that would not be allowed to look like that, and it still does. I know there are other buildings on Main Street that have the same issue, so it’s really important to myself personally and as a chamber of commerce board member to see (the city) start enforcing those codes.”
The city already has plans to aggressively target a number of derelict residential properties for repair and cleanup, with the council recently approving the International Property Maintenance Code and the planned hiring of a code-enforcement officer to help with that effort. The officer, though, is not expected to do code enforcement on commercial properties, only residential. The officer has also not yet even been hired, as the city plans to first join the Central Illinois Land Bank Authority — something that cannot happen until September, when the land bank authority’s executive board meets to consider the city’s application for membership.
Even without a code enforcement officer, though, the city can still enforce its ordinances, Alderman Eric Evans said.
“I feel that we don’t need to wait to hire somebody,” Evans said. “We just need to move forward with it. … I think it’s time we take the gloves off and go into the ring.”
Wednesday meeting topic: Revitalization of vacant, dilapidated buildings in Paxton - Ford County Chronicle
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